Monday, December 17, 2012

Joe Thurston rose up quickly through the Dodgers farm system. In 2001, he was a top-10 Dodgers prospect, and looked to have a bright future as a second baseman. Heck, in 2002 he earned the Dodgers' Minor League Player of the Year Award and Baseball America's AAA Player of the Year honors. Unfortunately, that season would prove to be the peak of his minor league career.

His stats continued to dip, and he was eventually traded to the Yankees in 2005. From there, Thurston has bounced around. In 2008, he finally garnered some significant playing time as a utility infielder for the Cardinals, but failed to stick with them long-term. Today, I am unsure if he is currently playing ball.

Featured here area couple of 2003 Donruss Leaf Certified Materials autographed cards of Joe Thurston- in the Gold and Red parallel versions.

"Our payroll a year ago was $90 [million]," Colletti said in an
interview on ESPNLA 710. "We're up over $200 [million] now. If you added
it all up, it might be up over 300 [million] over two years. Had we
been at 150 last year and 150 this year, nobody would be saying a word,
right?

Now, there's this exciting slugfest going on, the Dodgers and Angels
bringing baseball's spending war 3,000 miles west, from the Interstate
95 corridor of Boston and New York to the I-5 corridor between L.A. and
Anaheim. Everybody knows what it's about: TV money, ridiculous amounts.
The Angels got theirs about a year ago, for $3 billion over 20 years
from Fox. The Dodgers are in the process of hammering theirs out now
and, according to some reports, they could land double what the Angels
got.
Moneyball was so 2002, so Bay Area.

Ken Rosenthal at Fox Sports notes that the Dodgers are one of five teams to watch right now. Both Harang and Capuano figure on being traded.

"He can be a little standoffish. There are days he doesn't speak," said
Hillman. "But he's a good teammate, especially with his fellow starting
pitchers. My objective was to stay out of his way. I had maybe six or
seven conversations with him the whole year. There wasn't really a need
for more.

With the recent influx of Cuban ballplayers into the Majors, Gary Ashwill at Agate Type takes a look at the first Cubans to play in the American minor leagues in 1904.

I found this story hilarious. Charlie Sheen, in a drunken filled episode, gave away his prized Babe Ruth autographed Baseball to Zach Efron, via Big League Stew. BTW, the British press has it wrong. No Ruth autographed Baseball has every sold for a value near $2.6Mil.

Ya know... It can be difficult chasing sports memorabilia on eBay. Oftentimes, you just aren't sure if you are really getting what is described. Is it really vintage, or is it a modern knockoff? Heck, eBay can be kind of like a giant flea market filled with all kinds of characters. So, you've got to be careful when shopping and you must always be mindful of how an item is described. On the flip side, sometimes you run into a seller who has consistently sold the good stuff, and who seemingly has a reputation (both online and in the collecting community) as a top notch seller.

For this post I feature some incredible vintage photos and photo negatives from a eBay retailer who I would consider one of those top notch sellers- HYee Auctions. Shown here are some items currently on auction (but closing soon) that I thought would be fun to share.

Below is a October 5, 1949, original glass negative from the archives of the New York Daily News featuring the meat of the Dodgers lineup that season. In the photo is Roy Campanella, Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, Pee Wee Reese, Carl Furillo and Jackie Robinson.

The below photo comes from an original New York Daily News glass negative. It is of a very young (19 years old) Sandy Koufax from the 1955 season. As the auction description indicates, this may very well be the earliest known Baseball photograph of the Hall of Fame lefty. It is dated to April 9, 1955 and was taken by Fred Morgan before the start of Opening Day. As you can see, Sandy is showing off his 2-seam fastball grip.

You have probably seen hundreds of photos of Jackie Robinson. You've seen him batting, sliding, running and posing, but how about a photo of him getting beaned in the hand? Well, know you can say you've seen that, too. Here is a July 20, 1949 Associated Press photo of Jackie on the dirt while holding his battered hand as Pirates catcher Clyde McCullough chats with Hall of Fame umpire Al Barlick.

The next photo has nothing to do with the Dodgers, but is something I knew I had to share here. Below is a May 25, 1943 Associated Press photo of four players from the All American Girls Softball League. This photo immediately made me think of that Baseball movie, A League of their Own.

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“There’s nothing like wearing a Dodger jersey. There’s nothing like it in sports. I don’t care that I’ve never been anywhere else. I don’t care. There’s nothing like wearing a Dodger jersey.” -- A.J. Ellis